Thursday, February 16, 2012

Europe Has Every Right to Be Emotional About Fracking by Anna Witowska / Food & Water Watch Blog

As if he were employing the pop psychology Mars-versus-Venus framework on the issue, Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser called for a less “emotional” response to fracking in Europe. He stated that the European discussion on shale gas exploration is not factual but fuelled by emotions. So, can we thus infer that Mars — embodied by oil and gas corporations — must be focused on profits and is ready to drill? No matter who gets hurt in the process?
European opponents of fracking, including Food & Water Europe, are somewhat surprised by such a facile characterization as they have always based their case against fracking on facts— such as the water intensity of fracking operations. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are pumped into 35 thousand of fracking wells annually. What the gas industry is not admitting is that hydraulic fracturing uses water to an extent that ought to strike fear in countries that are counting on a shale gas boom, particularly as water becomes an increasingly scarce resource. Well contamination is also an issue to be considered. In January 2012, a Calgary-based company injected fluids at such a high pressure into a 1,800-metre-deep oil formation that they travelled more than 1.4 kilometres underground and ruptured an oil well near Innisfail, Alberta. There are also the documented facts of roads being destroyed through heavy machinery use and real estate prices dropping to ridiculous levels.
These are facts but there are also resulting emotions about compromising the quality of soil, air and water. Europeans may feel protective of their hills, meadows and valleys—and they are aware of the effects that fracking has had on the Pennsylvania landscape. They have the right to be emotional. They live on a continent that is rather small, densely populated and rich in areas of great environmental, cultural, and touristic value.
Mr. Voser, whose annual compensation for Royal Dutch Shell PLC amounted to over 5 million euros in 2010 is not paid to have such emotions. For Europeans of modest means, stewardship of the land still has an emotional component. Being emotional about fracking is not a character flaw. It is a virtue.

Anna Witowska-Ritter is Food & Water Europe’s Eastern Europe Program Coordinator. She is researching agricultural issues in Eastern Europe, monitoring factory farms, and writing a newsletter about these issues affecting the area she comes from. She is cooperating with several NGOs in Eastern Europe who share our goals of promoting sustainable farming and a more just food system. Anna has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Jagiellonian University She can be reached at awitowska(at)fweurope(dot)org.

About Me

Right To Share Food
At Right To Share Food, we believe that sharing food with our brothers and sisters is a fundamental human right. We believe that sharing food is a constitutionally protected activity, guaranteed under the freedom of association clause of the first amendment of The Constitution of the United States of America. We believe that sharing food outside and in public is an equally protected activity. Our goal is to promote cooperation among people in order to exercise and defend this right.
Hello; let me introduce myself. My name is Michael Hubman. I am the founder and the facilitator of Right To Share Food. Since 2007 I have been lobbying on behalf of the human and civil rights of homeless people. I operate Watercorps, a charity that gives bulk drinking water to the homeless people living on the streets of Skid Row Los Angeles.
Conflict occurs when government, most often municipalities, attempt to effect social engineering by restricting or forbidding the sharing of food on public property, the commons and even private property.
Michael “Waterman” Hubman
http://righttosharefood.org